Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T01:47:55.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The influence of immersion and presence in early stage engineering designing and building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2014

Daniela Faas ,
Qifang Bao ,
Daniel D. Frey  and
Maria C. Yang
Daniela Faas
Affiliation:
School of Applied Science and Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Qifang Bao
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Daniel D. Frey
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Maria C. Yang*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
*
Reprint requests to: Maria C. Yang, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems Division, Room 3-449B, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA. E-mail: mcyang@mit.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores the role of a designer's sense of engagement in early stage design. In the field of virtual reality, presence and immersion are standard measures of an individual's sense of engagement and involvement in an activity. High levels of presence might indicate that the designer is highly focused on the work. The central research question is the following: do designers who are more engaged in design activity, as measured by presence and immersive tendency questionnaires, produce better designs? An experiment was conducted to assess presence and immersive tendencies within the context of a hands-on, open-ended design-and-build activity. The results indicated that the designers' sense of immersion and presence ranged widely as well as their sense of frustration and calmness while performing the design activity. It was found that higher levels of presence correlated with either high design performance or low design performance. Lower levels of presence correlated with average design performance. No correlations were found between immersive tendency and design performance. This study suggests that some level of presence can be linked with better design, and it implies that level of presence might serve as an indicator of performance and learning in similar design-and-build activities.

Keywords

Early Stage Engineering Designing and BuildingEngagementImmersionPresence
Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 28 , Issue 2: Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'12) , May 2014 , pp. 139 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abuhamdeh, S., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations in the competitive context: an examination of person–situation interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(5), 1615–1635.Google Scholar
Banerjee, P., & Basu-Mallick, D. (2003). Measuring the effectiveness of presence and immersive tendencies on the conceptual design review process. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering 3(2), 166–169.Google Scholar
Banerjee, P., Bochenek, G., & Ragusa, J. (2002). Analyzing the relationship of presence and immersive tendencies on the conceptual design review process. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering 2(1), 59–64.Google Scholar
Bonwell, C.C., & Eison, J.A. (1991). Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. Washington, DC: George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.Google Scholar
Cross, N. (2011). Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Darken, R., Bernatovich, D., Lawson, J., & Peterson, B. (1999). Quantitative measures of presence in virtual environments: the roles of attention and spatial comprehension. CyberPsychology & Behavior 2(4), 337–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elsen, C., Demaret, J., Yang, M.C., & Leclercq, P. (2012). Sketch-based interfaces for modeling and users' needs: redefining connections. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 24(3), 303–316.Google Scholar
Gerber, E. (2009). Prototyping: facing uncertainty through small wins. Proc. Int. Conf. Engineering Design (ICED'09), pp. 333–342. Stanford, CA.Google Scholar
Gero, J.S. (1990). Design prototypes: a knowledge representation schema for design. AI Magazine 11(4), 26–36.Google Scholar
Houde, S., & Hill, C. (1997). What do prototypes prototype? In Handbook of Human–Computer Interaction (Helander, M., Landauer, T., & Prabhu, P., Eds.). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Insko, B.E. (2003). Measuring presence: subjective, behavioral and physiological methods. In Being There: Concepts, Effects and Measurement of User Presence in Synthetic Environments (Riva, F.D.G., & IJsselsteijn, W.A., Eds.). Amsterdam: Ios Press.Google Scholar
Insko, M. (2001). Physiological measures of presence in virtual environments. ACM Transactions on Graphics 21(3), 645–652.Google Scholar
Jackson, S.A., Thomas, P.R., Marsh, H.W., & Smethurst, C.J. (2001). Relationships between flow, self-concept, psychological skills, and performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 13(11), 129–153.Google Scholar
Linsey, J., Tseng, I., Fu, K., Cagan, J., & Wood, K. (2010). A study of design fixation, its mitigation and perception in engineering design faculty. Journal of Mechanical Design 132, 1–12.Google Scholar
Mantovani, G., & Riva, G. (1999). “Real” presence: how different ontologies generate different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 8(5), 540–550.Google Scholar
McMahan, A. (2003). Immersion, engagement and presence. In The Video Game Theory Reader (Wolf, M.J.P., & Perron, B., Eds.), pp. 67–86. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Neeley, J., Lawrence, W., Lim, K., Zhu, A., & Yang, M.C. (2013). Building fast to think faster: exploiting rapid prototyping to accelerate ideation during early stage design. Proc. ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conf. Portland, OR: ASME.Google Scholar
Nichols, S., Haldane, C., & Wilson, J. (2000). Measurement of presence and its consequences in virtual environments. International Journal of Human–Computer Studies 52(3), 471–491.Google Scholar
Oehlberg, L., Lau, K., & Agogino, A. (2009). Tangible interactions in a digital age: medium and graphic visualization in design journals. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering, Design Analysis and Manufacturing 23(3), 237–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pausch, R., Proffitt, D., & Williams, G. (1997). Quantifying immersion in virtual reality. Proc. 24th Annual Conf. Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, pp. 13–18. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Robertson, G.G., Czerwinski, M., & van Dantzich, M. (1997). Immersion in desktop virtual reality. Proc. Symp. User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Robinett, W. (1992). Synthetic experience: a proposed taxonomy. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 1(2), 229–247.Google Scholar
Samana, R., Wallach, H., & Safir, M. (2009). The impact of personality traits on the experience of presence. Proc. Virtual Rehabilitation Int. Conf. Haifa, Israel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sass, L., & Oxman, R. (2006). Materializing design: the implications of rapid prototyping in digital design. Design Studies 27(3), 325–355.Google Scholar
Schön, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic books.Google Scholar
Schubert, T.W., Friedmann, F., & Regenbrecht, H.T. (1999). Decomposing the sense of presence: factor analytic insights. Proc. 2nd Int. Workshop on Presence. University of Essex, Colchester, April 6–7.Google Scholar
Shah, J.J., Vargas-Hernandez, N., & Smith, S.M. (2003). Metrics for measuring ideation effectiveness. Design Studies 24(2), 111–134.Google Scholar
Shernoff, D.J., Csikszentmihalyi, M., Shneider, B., & Shernoff, E.S. (2003). Student engagement in high school classrooms from the perspective of flow theory. School Psychology Quarterly 18(2), 158–176.Google Scholar
Slater, M. (1999). Measuring presence: a response to the Witmer and Singer Questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 8(5), 560–566.Google Scholar
Song, S., & Agogino, A.M. (2004). Insights on designers' sketching activities in product design teams. Proc. 2004 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conf, pp. 351–360. Salt Lake City, UT: ASME.Google Scholar
Stothard, P., Mitra, R., & Kovalev, A. (2008). Assessing levels of immersive tendency and presence experienced by mine workers in interactive training simulators developed for the coal mining industry. Proc. SimTec 2008 Simulation Conf., pp. 1–6.Google Scholar
Swindells, C., Po, B., Hajshirmohammadi, I., Corrie, B., Dill, J., Fisher, B., & Booth, K. (2004). Comparing CAVE, wall, and desktop displays for navigation and wayfinding in complex 3D models. Proc. Computer Graphics Int., 2004, pp. 420–427.Google Scholar
Ullman, D.G. (2003). The Mechanical Design Process, 3rd ed.New York: McGraw–Hill.Google Scholar
Ullman, D.G., Wood, S., & Craig, D. (1990). The importance of drawing in the mechanical design process. Computers & Graphics 14(2), 263–274.Google Scholar
Usoh, M., Catena, E., Arman, S., & Slater, M. (2000). Using presence questionnaires in reality. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 9(5), 497–503.Google Scholar
van der Lugt, R. (2005). How sketching can affect the idea generation process in design group meetings. Design Studies 26(2), 101–122.Google Scholar
Verlinden, J., de Smit, A., & Horváth, I. (2004). Case-based exploration of the augmented prototyping dialogue to support design. Proc. Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering, pp. 245–254.Google Scholar
Viswanathan, V.K., & Linsey, J.S. (2012). Physical models and design thinking: a study of functionality, novelty and variety of ideas. Journal of Mechanical Design 134(9), 091004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welch, R.B. (1999). How can we determine if the sense of presence affects task performance? Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 8(5), 574–577.Google Scholar
Witmer, B., & Singer, M. (1998). Measuring presence in virtual environments: a presence questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 7(3), 225–240.Google Scholar
Yang, M.C. (2005 a). Does sketching skill relate to good design? Proc. Design Theory and Methodology Conf., pp. 301–308. Long Beach, CA.Google Scholar
Yang, M.C. (2005 b). A study of prototypes, design activity, and design outcome. Design Studies 26(6), 649–669.Google Scholar
Yang, M.C. (2009). Observations of concept generation and sketching in engineering design projects. Research in Engineering Design 20(1), 1–11.Google Scholar
Ye, N., Banerjee, P., Banerjee, A., & Dech, F. (1999). A comparative study of assembly planning in traditional and virtual environments. Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: Applications and Reviews 29(4), 546–555.Google Scholar
Zeltzer, D. (1992). Autonomy, interaction, and presence. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 1(1), 127–132.Google Scholar